The sun is shining today. I wonder if that means spring is coming? Winter has been long, cold, and dreary. Gray skies.
And with the sun glimmering through the wrack of clouds, with the hints of blue sky breaking through the clouds, I cannot help but wonder how it is that my surroundings ever seem to reflect my heart. The storm. The gray skies that have so dominated the world this last winter in particular, but somehow seem to have ever since that fateful night. The moments of hope like the few days of sunshine last summer.
And now as things begin at last to make sense - maybe - the gray skies have tentatively broken. The sun is shining; of that there can be no doubt, but how long it will stay out is the ultimate question. And the blue skies, the trees almost shockingly green, the flowers gentle hues of purple and orange and red...
Can it be? Is there truly hope in this world?
And if so... oh, God! If there is hope...
I have read much this last year. Things are clearer now than they were. God becomes to me not only an angry judge but a vindicator.
It is strange. He is the source of my hope. I never thought that could be. Ever and always he has been my condemner, the one who stands over me with gavel in hand to judge and to smite, crushing me beneath his rightful rage. He is the holy God, the righteous one who I can never reach.
On my own.
I cannot believe my own eyes as I read, sometimes. I look up at the heavens, want to laugh, shout, cry, take in the sun and the clouds and the blue with my arms somehow.
There is hope in this book, hope I have never known in all my days. I have been wreathed in endless darkness, and the flint has always been at hand, the kindling at my feet. But I did not know, could not know, for no one had ever told me, given me any idea.
And that makes me simultaneously sad and angry. Outraged.
I know I am not alone in this hopelessness. But what am I to do? I do not even understand, yet, what all that I read means.
Grace is still a mystery to me. Justification eludes my understanding. Election is completely beyond my grasp. Yet these words are here, common, oft-repeated.
The glory of Christ seems to be a central theme of the New Testament. I cannot believe the riches I find: the frequency with which everything returns to that point, and how infrequent the references to...
No. Not yet. I dare not. I dare not even truly think such things yet. There is much yet to study before I begin to walk that road, for it is a road I would not easily return from.
For now I content myself with a glimmer of sun, with the taste of spring air after a rain when the earth turns soft and the sky turns all the colors imaginable. I will content myself with a sky turned to fire as my heart begins to burn anew with a passion and a desire and a life such as I have never known and my thoughts are kindled into flame.
I love God: not only fear him (though fear Him I do, and rightly so). For though I fear him, I begin not to be afraid, begin as though held by his hand - inconceivable! is it possible? - to trust Him and so to have stirred in my heart affections for Him beyond mere terror and growing more and more like delight.
And the winds continue to tear apart the great gray shroud.
---
This is part of an ongoing work of historical fiction.
And with the sun glimmering through the wrack of clouds, with the hints of blue sky breaking through the clouds, I cannot help but wonder how it is that my surroundings ever seem to reflect my heart. The storm. The gray skies that have so dominated the world this last winter in particular, but somehow seem to have ever since that fateful night. The moments of hope like the few days of sunshine last summer.
And now as things begin at last to make sense - maybe - the gray skies have tentatively broken. The sun is shining; of that there can be no doubt, but how long it will stay out is the ultimate question. And the blue skies, the trees almost shockingly green, the flowers gentle hues of purple and orange and red...
Can it be? Is there truly hope in this world?
And if so... oh, God! If there is hope...
I have read much this last year. Things are clearer now than they were. God becomes to me not only an angry judge but a vindicator.
It is strange. He is the source of my hope. I never thought that could be. Ever and always he has been my condemner, the one who stands over me with gavel in hand to judge and to smite, crushing me beneath his rightful rage. He is the holy God, the righteous one who I can never reach.
On my own.
I cannot believe my own eyes as I read, sometimes. I look up at the heavens, want to laugh, shout, cry, take in the sun and the clouds and the blue with my arms somehow.
There is hope in this book, hope I have never known in all my days. I have been wreathed in endless darkness, and the flint has always been at hand, the kindling at my feet. But I did not know, could not know, for no one had ever told me, given me any idea.
And that makes me simultaneously sad and angry. Outraged.
I know I am not alone in this hopelessness. But what am I to do? I do not even understand, yet, what all that I read means.
Grace is still a mystery to me. Justification eludes my understanding. Election is completely beyond my grasp. Yet these words are here, common, oft-repeated.
The glory of Christ seems to be a central theme of the New Testament. I cannot believe the riches I find: the frequency with which everything returns to that point, and how infrequent the references to...
No. Not yet. I dare not. I dare not even truly think such things yet. There is much yet to study before I begin to walk that road, for it is a road I would not easily return from.
For now I content myself with a glimmer of sun, with the taste of spring air after a rain when the earth turns soft and the sky turns all the colors imaginable. I will content myself with a sky turned to fire as my heart begins to burn anew with a passion and a desire and a life such as I have never known and my thoughts are kindled into flame.
I love God: not only fear him (though fear Him I do, and rightly so). For though I fear him, I begin not to be afraid, begin as though held by his hand - inconceivable! is it possible? - to trust Him and so to have stirred in my heart affections for Him beyond mere terror and growing more and more like delight.
And the winds continue to tear apart the great gray shroud.
---
This is part of an ongoing work of historical fiction.
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